Invitation to VeraMobile Android (Beta) Discussions

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Let me start by thanking the passionate, dedicated and committed people who will be willing to do the hard work and sprint with us to build something important for our community and it’s users.

The VeraMobile Beta app is where we test our newest features and app updates. The VeraMobile Beta app functions just like the normal VeraMobile app, but you also get to help us hunt bugs, improve usability, and try features before public release.

To participate in this testing program, you must request access to join the Android Beta Group first. Once you’re accepted to be a Beta tester, yo’ll need to follow the instructions on how to download the Beta app.

Feel free to discuss here but for direct input to the Android team please use the aforementioned Beta discussion group to report bugs, feedback, and usability improvements.

The highlights of this release are:

[]Geofence - Improvement: Updated geofence mechanism to work with the new limitations on Android 8/9
[]Geofence: Fixed the issue where concurrent geofence updates were not properly handled
[]New: Added the Controller list page with status for controllers ( online/offline), display the weather and location of the controller
[]New: Added username validation on create new user
[]New: Added change password on edit user
[]Increased reliability of the app with various improvements and fixes
Various other issues identified on previous releases.

Live long and prosper!

2

Signed up and installed. Thanks for allowing me to help.

3

Signed up and joined

4

I signed up to the beta using a different phone (didn’t want to bork my main phone) and created a “Basic” beta user on my vera edge. I already have geofencing setup on my main phone/standard android app/administrative user, with a geofence created. On the beta phone I enabled geofencing, do I have to create another geofence on this phone (because it says that I don’t have permission to do this), or is the geofence that I created for the main user that one that gets acted upon?

5

Hi Trevor, thank you for joining.

I think the issue is the Basic user which if I remember well is limited to not use Geofence triggers.

6

Android S7 Samsung.

Seems slightly faster however, I still find myself getting to the door, in the house before Vera App sees me inside the geofence. My geofence is set up at 600 yards. Obviously, I will have to increase the size of the geofence?

Wondering if there is a recommended geofence radius?

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[quote=“Sorin, post:5, topic:200146”]Hi Trevor, thank you for joining.

I think the issue is the Basic user which if I remember well is limited to not use Geofence triggers.[/quote]

OK I’ll up the permissions of the beta user

8

Just out of curiosity? This is a complete re-write so why is it an app? Most companies are moving to PWAs due to the incredible inconsistency in the Android kernel creating an inability to support apps on the OS. Other companies that require an actual app for now have dropped support for all but Google, Samsung, and in some cases LG devices with all others being “best effort”. One such example is Salesforce (small company you may have heard of).

I could be wrong but from what I understand the only benefit to the app would be the ability to open it offline, location services, notifications, speed, and the ability to use non-standard protocols. Which for mobile web most of those aren’t even a factor anymore. PWA none of them are with the slight exception that it may be difficult to use non-standard protocols but as this is a standards based platform that shouldn’t be an issue. PWAs can even be installed through the app store and could even work like the current website and talk to the device locally instead of through the internet relay when needed. It also means one PWA works for Android mobile. Chromebook, Windows 10, Windows 10 S, Windows Mobile 10, and Mac (iPhone has more limited support to my knowledge).

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[quote=“Inzax, post:6, topic:200146”]Android S7 Samsung.

Seems slightly faster however, I still find myself getting to the door, in the house before Vera App sees me inside the geofence. My geofence is set up at 600 yards. Obviously, I will have to increase the size of the geofence?

Wondering if there is a recommended geofence radius?[/quote]

Hi Inzax,

You can find our recommendations for the Geofencing settings in the Android VeraMobile? application in the URL below. By default, the radio is set to 100m, but we recommend increasing it to 250m or more.

https://support.getvera.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2934335-geofence-explained-for-android-app?b_id=712

10

Kept fence at 600 radius. It is working more reliably now without me tinkering. NO idea why.

Events I have notifications for are less reliable but I am ok with that if Geofence is MORE reliable. For instance I have the notification option associated with crossing the geofence and ONE trigger to set security system that also has a notification. Typically, back in the day, I would get both notifications. Now on this beta, I get one or the other and rarely both. I’ll probably just scale back to security system notification since that tells me all I want to know. The double notification was one of those things I set up and never fixed.

11

I’m in.

I want the app to look more exactly like the web page whereupon all my plugins like Pool Control are fully functional.

In the app? Not so much.

12

Good day everyone.

The mysterious time zone changes were indeed affecting the Android beta users, but this was, in fact, part of a deeper implementation of a timezone mechanism which was reverted in the latest Android Beta push.

13

My advice to anyone contemplating trying this Beta is NOT to use it on a working system.

It has caused greif with PLEG, RFXCom and Broadlink.
Use in a sandpit only.

I had tried to post this to the Beta group but it was rejected.

14

Hey, zedrally, I’m sorry to hear that.

The purpose of the Beta group and invite is to gather as much feedback as we can. There’s no kind of pre-approval or rejection or messages.

Here’s the group: Redirecting to Google Groups

And it shouldn’t be any connection between the mobile apps and the plugins on your Vera, besides the fact that you simply won’t be able to control them from the mobile app, since that’s not supported yet. There’s no other way a mobile app can interfere with any of the existing plugins.

15

^^^
Well I disagree with your statement.
The Mobile App updated the FW on the Home Vera, the first I knew about it was when I logged into the GUI and it didn’t go through the “checking for update” sequence, then the AC’s wouldn’t kick in when the temp went over 26C.
Checking the GUI showed that the FW was upgraded which in turn stopped Broadlink communication, further evaluation also showed that PLEG was not working as it should. I’ll be looking into it today as I would prefer to use updated FW, if it doesn’t I’ll need to revrt back to the last known working version.

Not a huge problem but had I known that it would update then I would not have used that Vera, rather a sandbox one.

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17

Sorry to hear that. Most likely it’s a mistake
I’ve asked around what’s the deal with that message. I’ll keep you posted.

18

Hello.
Is this product going to allow for (more than just simplistic) logic constructs to make up a real rules engine? Or, will we have to continue using all of those extra
s like PLEG etc.

19

Part of the new venture, we’re proud to announce that VeraMobile 7.0.28 is LIVE.
We’re launching an update that is the product of the last few months of planning, hard work, stabilization and incredibly insightful input from our community and customers.

We’re excited to see it go live, and we’re excited about what it means for all of our legacy customers moving forward.

So, what exactly changed?

Most notable

Geofence - Improvement: Updated geofence mechanism to work with the new limitations on Android 8/9
Geofence: Fixed the issue where concurrent geofence updates were not properly handled

New Features

[ul][li]
Added the Controller list page with status for controllers ( online/offline), display the weather and location of the controller
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Added username validation on create new user
[/li][/ul]

Fixes and Improvements

[ul][li]
Improvement: The enrolment flow saves the controller time zone
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Improvement: user interface related to camera permission
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Improvement:when the Create account fails, the user is informed if the email address or username are in use
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Improvement: on the thermostats layout
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue from the Scenes / Notify these users page when Other users were not displayed
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue from the Preset Modes when Other users were not displayed
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue related to the redirect of the user to controller list after deleting the current controller
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the display of the Qubino ZMNHJD1 (Pilot Wire)
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue with the connection to the controller which was lost every few seconds in a specific environment
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue when the dimming level was not in sync with the status of the dimmer in the scene creation menu
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the crash when establishing a connection to the controller
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue when the device state wasn?t sent and displayed properly
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue when the app restarted after adding a picture to an existing account
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed slider display for dimmer
[/li][/ul]

[ul][li]
Fixed the issue when the user tried to change the temperature (up / down) for the Thermostat SRT322
[/li][/ul]

Fixed and stabilized hundreds of other identified issues on previous releases.

As always, if you have any feedback or issues with the new release we’d love to hear it through any of the available channels.

20

Is there any chance we can create a user account level that is ONLY geofence with no other access level? Just the Vera app logged in so that it notifies of geofence settings?

My reasoning is that I have some things that can be turned on/off that I don’t necessarily want my young child having the ability to do, yet I’d like to turn the furnace/Air Conditioner on when he gets home from school. Additionally, I have a back room that has a playstation/TV that gets shutdown automatically after inactivity. I don’t want them to be able to turn it back on without asking me first. You see, I’ve had them get up at 2am on a school night to play it and I can’t hear it from my bedroom…